I grew up with the dopiest mascot in American sports. At least, that’s what I thought at the time.

Mr. Red was the perpetually uncool Cincinnati Reds’ response to the baseball mascot craze begun in the 1970s by Ted Giannoulas’ San Diego Chicken and taken to a separate height by Dave Raymond’s Phillie Phanatic. Each humanized his creature with physical mannerisms worthy of Marcel Marceau or Charlie Chaplin. They were both that funny.

The Reds’ clueless answer to this comedic brilliance was to pluck some guy off the street, put him in a Reds uniform, stick a giant baseball head on his shoulders and have him walk around Riverfront Stadium waving at people with his vacuous Charissa Thompson gaze and frightening small children.

Everything about Mr. Red was so totally indicative of the club’s 1970s GM Dick Wagner and the tight-fisted, nitwitted 1980s majority owner who fired him, Marge Schott: Mindless, arbitrary and done on the dirt-cheap. Right down to the fact that Mr. Red had a number on his uniform: No. 27. Not like No. 81 for the year, or something “zany” like No. 000 or something really wrong like No. 666.

No, Mr. Red was No. 27. Why No. 27? Nobody knew. It’s was recently reported by a Reds blogger that club majority owner Francis Dale, later to become a member of Richard Nixon’s infamous Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), assigned No. 27 to Mr. Red when he was designed as part of the team logo in 1968 because his kid’s favorite baseball player was Dal Maxvill. Yes, Dal Maxvill, a journeyman shortstop best known for playing on the 1967 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals – but never for the Reds. Hey, sounds as plausible as anything to me.

It gradually became apparent to me in my youth that Mr. Red had an equally banal first-cousin in Flushing Meadows named Mr. Met. Same type of generic name, almost identical costume – guy in a standard-issue club uniform with a giant baseball head and googly eyeballs. And he did the same thing, walking around Shea Stadium, greeting fans who basically laughed at his innocuousness.

Well, a couple of days ago, it became apparent that the guy who played Mr. Met in the late ‘90s had a more exciting life than anyone knew – at least for one day. Here’s a book excerpt from AJ Mass, one of the men in the Mr. Met costume, who said he was given a sobering heads-up by a Secret Service agent when then-President Bill Clinton visited Shea in 1997:

“Now listen to me very carefully,” he goes on, and as he continues to speak, he does something that nobody else has ever done in all my years as Mr. Met. He isn’t looking up, as everyone automatically does when talking to me. Most people, out of habit, make eye contact with the person they are talking to, even if the person appears to be a giant living baseball. I’ve gotten used to seeing people’s necks when they address me, as they crane to meet what appears to be my gaze.

But the man in the dark suit is staring directly into the recess of Mr. Met’s mouth, knowing full well that even though he isn’t able to see inside, it’s exactly where I am looking out from. It’s hard to explain how utterly creeped out I am by this.

The closest thing I can compare it to is the opening scene of the movie Scream, in which Drew Barrymore’s character answers what she thinks is a harmless crank call and the strange voice on the other end innocently asks her what her name is. When she playfully asks why he wants to know, the voice says menacingly, “Because I want to know who I’m looking at!” In an instant, Drew knows she’s in a whole lot of trouble. That’s exactly the vibe I’m starting to get from the man in the dark suit. Needless to say, he has my full attention.

If you’re imagining Mr. Met’s plastic head exploding in 10 million shards like one of those spherical-mirror lawn ornaments, you’re not alone. Mr. Met did, too. The agent continued:

“We have snipers all around the stadium, just in case something were to happen,” he says. “Like I said, do whatever it is you normally do. Nobody will bother you. But approach the president, and we go for the kill shot. Are we clear?”

Mass’ book is entitled, “Yes, It’s Hot In Here: Adventures in the Weird, Woolly World of Sports Mascots.” Shore reading list? I think so.